Page 142 - the-idiot

drawingroom,’ said Nina Alexandrovna herself, appearing
at the door.
‘Imagine, my dear,’ cried the general, ‘it turns out that I
have nursed the prince on my knee in the old days.’ His wife
looked searchingly at him, and glanced at the prince, but
said nothing. The prince rose and followed her; but hardly
had they reached the drawing-room, and Nina Alexandrov-
na had begun to talk hurriedly, when in came the general.
She immediately relapsed into silence. The master of the
house may have observed this, but at all events he did not
take any notice of it; he was in high good humour.
‘A son of my old friend, dear,’ he cried; ‘surely you must
remember Prince Nicolai Lvovitch? You saw him at—at
Tver.’
‘I don’t remember any Nicolai Lvovitch, Was that your
father?’ she inquired of the prince.
‘Yes, but he died at Elizabethgrad, not at Tver,’ said the
prince, rather timidly. ‘So Pavlicheff told me.’
‘No, Tver,’ insisted the general; ‘he removed just before
his death. You were very small and cannot remember; and
Pavlicheff, though an excellent fellow, may have made a
mistake.’
‘You knew Pavlicheff then?’
‘Oh, yes—a wonderful fellow; but I was present myself. I
gave him my blessing.’
‘My father was just about to be tried when he died,’ said
the prince, ‘although I never knew of what he was accused.
He died in hospital.’
‘Oh! it was the Kolpakoff business, and of course he

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